Join SMK for an afternoon focusing on Modernisms and the Black Diaspora, with a lecture by Richard J. Powell, and a panel on AfroScandinavian Experience and Transnational Modernisms.
Lecture: Confessions for Myself: Black Art and Transnational Mobility in Modernism by Richard J. Powell
Art historian Linda Nochlin stated that what angered and disappointed her most about the notion of a cultural diaspora among modern artists and their self-imposed conditions of exile was that, as a Jewish woman, she had been “exiled from Jewish exile by the mere fact of [her] sex; it is men,” she continued “who lay claim to the diasporist tradition of modernity.” One certainly sees the domination of white male artists in the accounts of self-exile, despite a long, underexamined history of not only women artists in exile, but Black artists, regardless of gender, who also found homes abroad – often in Europe – where they created new professional centers of operation with fewer societal impositions. By looking at the careers of artists of African descent and their participation via long-distance migration in the modern art enterprise, this lecture considers how social and cultural shifts have catapulted Black artists across the Atlantic and set the stage for alternative art histories
Panel: AfroScandinavian Experience and Transnational Modernisms
A panel discussion on AfroScandinavian lived experience and transnational modernisms. Bringing together scholars and curators Elizabeth Löwe Hunter, Monica Miller, Marcia Harvey Isaksson, and Ethelene Whitmire, this conversation will explore histories of Black life and artistic production in Scandinavia in the early 20th century. The panel will address questions of archiving, historiography, and curatorial practice, and consider how attending to local and transnational perspectives on the African diaspora can reshape prior understandings of 20th-century Scandinavian art histories. Moderated by Nina Cramer.